Australian Investment Blog

• Volatility remains as expected, with the ASX 200 starting the week off at a high this morning, up 96 points at one stage, only to fail and close 10 points higher at 5309.• The reason for today’s reversal was on China, with the Shanghai Composite Index currently trading as low as ~6.8% after regulators took action on margin trading in an attempt to curb the recent jump in stock prices with purchases via margin lending.• As mentioned to our Subscribers, we have taken profit in our long Newcrest (NCM) position. Although we see further upside in Gold, i.e. US$1,400/oz. the gold play is a trade, rather than a long term investment and we are happy in taking healthy profits and focus on the current market situation. This is particularly when you see the Chairman of Regis Resources (RRL) selling $10.3m of RRL last week. NCM closed unchanged at $12.97 after trading as high as $13.33 while RRL closed 2.9% lower at $2.04.• OZ Forex (OFX) slumped by -10.3% at $2.43 on the close, after Westpac decided to part ways with the foreign exchange (FX) business along with investors’ concerns over the recent shock in the FX market. OFX however, stated it has not been impacted by the removal of the Swiss-Franc Cap and that the currency represents less than 1% of transactions.• Macquarie Group (MQG) closed 5.4% higher at $58.25 and surged as high as 6.7% at $59.02 after updating its earnings forecast by 20%. Although we like MQG, we are cautious with the global markets.